- 22 Apr 2009 04:39
#1881438
While I am certainly a Marxist, I think that some forms of oppression can't fully be reduced to a class analysis. I mean this only in the sense that it doesn't provide a full explanation for certain forms of social oppression. For example, the portrayal of women in film as simply objects is related to the commodification of things like sexuality, but the oppression of women is across class lines often (although for example women in the ruling class are socially oppressed in a different way than working class women). I recently read this article that has a sentence that is very problematic yet pops up from time to time by Marxists:
From Communism and the Family by Alexandra Kollontai
This just doesn't seem to follow for me. While I think the elimination of current class relations is quite necessary to truly liberate oppressed peoples, I don't think that it automatically follows that a socialist revolution will end things like social oppression.
For example, it isn't fully absurd to imagine a society where the means of production are held in common, yet films like "Observe and Report" are produced that paint date rape as not a serious crime (and even to be laughed at). This highlights a problem with assuming that socialism would "automatically fix" these problems, and also perhaps shows a problem with trying to reduce all oppression to class.
That said, I am still a Marxist and think that class relations certainly do explain why these forms of social oppression occur. For example, looking into the history of racism and how it changed over time was a result of changing modes of production.
So while a class analysis can explain why these forms of oppression came to be (or were "given an opportunity to flourish"), we don't need to stop there. Understanding how to fight the social oppression seems to require more than simply saying "refer to the class struggle".
Once these economic forms are superseded, the trade in women will automatically disappear.
From Communism and the Family by Alexandra Kollontai
This just doesn't seem to follow for me. While I think the elimination of current class relations is quite necessary to truly liberate oppressed peoples, I don't think that it automatically follows that a socialist revolution will end things like social oppression.
For example, it isn't fully absurd to imagine a society where the means of production are held in common, yet films like "Observe and Report" are produced that paint date rape as not a serious crime (and even to be laughed at). This highlights a problem with assuming that socialism would "automatically fix" these problems, and also perhaps shows a problem with trying to reduce all oppression to class.
That said, I am still a Marxist and think that class relations certainly do explain why these forms of social oppression occur. For example, looking into the history of racism and how it changed over time was a result of changing modes of production.
So while a class analysis can explain why these forms of oppression came to be (or were "given an opportunity to flourish"), we don't need to stop there. Understanding how to fight the social oppression seems to require more than simply saying "refer to the class struggle".